At my friend’s instance, I sent to Paris for the book, which I have, however, only recently read through. I recommend it to your perusal, if the subject should happen to interest your wayward curiosity. Any thing like an elaborate analysis of it is out of the question in a letter of this sort; but I shall borrow from it a few leading facts and observations, which, at all events, will surprise you. I am afraid, after all, I should have treated the Count as a visionary, and not have yielded to his statements the credence they deserve, but for the good British evidence I had already heard in favour of their trustworthiness; and still I suspect that I should have imagined many of the details fanciful had I perused them at an earlier period than the present; for, it is but lately that I have read Von Reichenbach’s experiments on the action of crystals, and of what not, upon sensitive human bodies; a series of phenomena utterly unlike those explored by the Count de Tristan, but which have, nevertheless, the most curious analogy and interesting points of contact with them, confirmatory of the truth of both.
But permit me to introduce you to the Count: he shall tell you his own tale in his own way; but as he does not speak English, at least in his book, I must serve as dragoman.
“The history of my researches is simply this:—Some twenty years ago, a gentleman who, from his position in society, could have no object to gain by deception, showed to me, for my amusement, the movements of the divining rod. He attributed the motion to the influence of a current of water, which I thought no unlikely supposition. But my attention was rather engaged with the action produced by the influence, let that be what it might. My informant assured me he had met with many others, through whom similar effects were manifested. When I was returned home, and had opportunities of making trials under favourable circumstances, I found that I possessed the same endowment myself. Since then I have induced many to make the experiment; and I have found a fourth, or at all events a fifth of the number, capable of setting the divining rod in motion at the very first attempt. Since that time, during these twenty years, I have often tried my hand, but for amusement only, and desultorily, and without any idea of making the thing an object of scientific investigation. But at length, in the year 1822, being in the country, and removed from my ordinary pursuits, the subject again came across me, and I then determined to ascertain the cause of these phenomena. Accordingly, I commenced a long series of experiments, from 1500 to 1800 in number, which occupied me nearly fifteen months. The results of above 1200 were noted down at the time of their performance.”
The scene of the Count’s operations was in the valley of the Loire, five leagues from Vendôme, in the park of the Chateau de Ranac. The surface of ground which gave the desired results, was from 70 to 80 feet in breadth. But there was another spot equally efficient near the Count’s ordinary residence at Emerillon, near Clery, four leagues southwest of Orleans, ten leagues south of the Loire, at the commencement of the plains of Sologne. The surface was from north to south, and was about of the same breadth with the other. These exciting tracts form, in general, bands or zones of undetermined, and often very great length. Their breadth is very variable. Some are only three or four feet across, while others are one hundred paces. These tracts are sometimes sinuous and sometimes ramify. To the most susceptible they are broader than to those who are less so.
The Count thus describes what happens when a competent person, armed with a hazel fork, walks over these exciting districts.
When two or three steps have been made upon the exciting tract of ground, the fork (which I have already said is to be held horizontally with its central angle forward,) begins gently to ascend; it gradually attains a vertical position—sometimes it passes beyond that, and lowering itself with its point towards the chest of the operator, it becomes again horizontal. If the motion continue, the rod, descending, becomes vertical with the angle downwards. Finally, the rod may again ascend and reassume its first horizontal position, having thus completed a revolution. When the action is very lively, the rod immediately commences a second revolution; and so it goes on as long as the operator walks over the exciting surface of ground.
It is to be understood that the operator does not grasp the handles of the fork so tightly but that they may turn in his hands. If, indeed, he tries to prevent this, and the fork is only of hazel twig, the rotatory force is so strong as to twist it at the handles and crack the bark, and finally, fracture the wood itself.
I can imagine you at this statement endeavouring to hit the proper intonation of the monosyllable “Hugh,” frequently resorted to by Uncas, the son of Chingachkook, as well as by his parent, on similar occasions; though I remember to have read of none so trying in their experience. I anticipate the remarks you would subsequently make, which the graver Indian would have politely repressed:—“By my patience, this bangs Banagher, and exhausts credulity. The assertion of these dry impossibilities is too choking to listen to. The fork cannot go down in this crude and unprotected state. It is as inconvenient a morsel as the ‘Amen’ inopportunely suggested to the conscience-stricken Macbeth. Cannot you contrive some intellectual cookery to make the process of deglutition easier? Suppose you mix the raw facts with some flowery hypothesis, throw in a handful of familiar ideas to give a congenial flavour, and stir into the mess some leaven of stale opinion to make it rise; so, do try your hand at a philosophical soufflé.”
Do manus.
Then you are to imagine that a current of electricity, or of something like it, may use your legs as conductors, as you walk over the soil from which it emanates, the circuit which it seeks being completed through your arms and the divining rod.